


Diverging paths

by TerresDeBrume



Series: Flash Fic Night Prompts [41]
Category: Star Wars Original Trilogy
Genre: Break Up, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-24
Updated: 2016-10-24
Packaged: 2018-08-24 09:55:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,228
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8367952
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TerresDeBrume/pseuds/TerresDeBrume
Summary: Lando has always know this moment would come. It doesn’t make it any better.





	

“Crap,” Han mutters to Lando’s left, “shit, no—no, no, talk to me baby, what’s going on this time?”

 

Lando snorts into the commands, stirs them toward what seems like a deserted moon while Han panics and fusses at the Falcon’s capricious systems, and chuckles:

 

“Sometimes I feel like I should be jealous of her.”

“Why?” Han replies, a slight edge of desperation in his voice, “I don’t do to her half the things I do to you.”

 

Lando rolls his eyes, leans to the side in his seat as if it’s going to make the landing any less of a crash—it does, at least, ease his mind, even if he knows both Han and himself have managed to land the beast in far worse conditions before. In the pilot’s seat, Han’s attention is still fully devoted to the mechanisms, won’t drag away until he’s figured out what’s wrong with his baby—something Lando can sympathize with, most of the time.

 

(It’s a little harder to do these days, but hey. No one said being in a relationship was easy.)

 

“So,” Lando half-teases once they’ve landed the Falcon into a small clearing, “does that mean you’re in it for the sex only?”

 

Han’s head turns so fast Lando is almost—almost—worried he’ll give himself whiplash. His eyes are wild, almost panicky, but he recovers fast and puts an unconcerned face on while Lando stands his ground, carefully neutral while Han flails at him.

 

“Of course not,” he says, looking like he’d rather be discussing the quality of Bantha shit, “we’re friends for life, remember? I mean, I let you pilot her, don’t I?”

 

He does. Let’s give credit where credit is due: Han, for all his faults, lets Lando in to pretty much every aspect of his life, gives everything he has to offer, every day. It’s just…well. He doesn’t always have enough to offer.

 

“Yes,” Lando agrees, stomach sinking. “Tied for life.”

 

There are things they’ve seen and done together—worlds away from sex, although that’s a nice touch as well—that leave too much of an imprint on a guy for him to forget the man he lived these experiences with. A lifelong bond is a given, after those, stretched as it might become.

But Lando watches Han fluster and busy himself with the first piece of electronics he can find, bury himself in the Falcon’s innards with the same certitude that he can fix it he’s always had, and he’s acutely aware that Han isn’t tired of this.

Not the way Lando is.

 

(Not so long ago, when he first started thinking about retirement, Lando used to dream about another life for them. He’d have found a place where they could settle and make real plans for the future instead of hopping from one planet to the next and hoping they’d find something good there.

He’d have built something for Chewie too, not far from their place—mostly because it’s always a good idea to be polite to your father-in-law, no matter how furry he is or how much your partner denies the connection.

They’d have grown old together, snarking and teasing each other to no end.

But then, Lando hinted at it in front of Han, once, and watched him pale and stutter and find something new to do with with the Falcon in record time. Things, after that, have grown strained between them, and Lando’s hopes of fixing it are close to vanishing already.)

 

Lando sighs, picks up a wrench, rolls his sleeves down to avoid minor burns, and joins Han in the motors where they stay firmly encased until they’ve scoured every inch of them and Han, finally, must admit he’ll need to order spare parts from Centauris, the moon’s planet.

 

The face he makes when he learns about the delay is almost comical enough to make Lando laugh, but Han groans and grunts and it takes a long time before he peels his forehead from the radio, turns a hopeful—almost shy—smile toward Lando and says:

 

“Well, at least we get some holidays. A month planet side, you must be extatic.”

“Just a bit,” Lando admits with a private grin of his own.

 

***

 

The month passes in a haze of lazy days, walking along the lake next to the Falcon and into the forest—enjoying the warm, Corellian-like climate for all it’s worth, and making love in increasingly improbable locations.

Lando, for all that he’s visited pleasure houses in all corners of the galaxy, has never felt so worshiped as he does during that month. Han kisses and bites and licks prayer into his skin, begs and begs and begs Lando to stay with gestures he’d never dare translate into words and, oh, Lando wants to say yes—wants to have this, to have Han, for the rest of his life and then beyond, if there’s anything then.

 

But as the time to leave grows near, Han grows restless with excitement and Lando grows sullen and reluctant, unwilling to leave their little shack behind.

He thinks maybe even being poor again would be worth it if it meant they got to settle down—have a real home to come back to at the end of the day, with a roof and four walls and neighbors who know their names and invite them for diner on occasion.

 

When the parts come—when the Falcon is ready to fly again until its next malfunction and Han practically bursts with joy at the thought of space welcoming him with open arms—Lando corners him in the empty cargo area, and tells him about wanting to settle down somewhere.

 

“Anywhere,” he promises, “anywhere is fine. I just want it to be with you, Han. Please.”

 

It takes a long time for Han’s mouth to answer but his eyes—his eyes give him away immediately, wide with panic and uncertainty and hurt, too—and Lando is heartbroken but not surprised when Han says:

 

“I can’t. You know I can’t.”

 

He could, Lando knows, if he’d just let himself do it—would probably be the best companion anyone could wish for if he’d just agree to it—if he only _wanted to_ , but he doesn’t. Never truly has, really, and Lando would have hated himself forever if he hadn’t at least tried, but it’s not like he hasn’t known what the answer would be from the moment Han said—in the very beginning of their acquantance—there was nothing for him on the ground.

 

Lando stays on Centauris and watches the Falcon fly away—tells himself it’s only his imagination that makes it look faster than usual, even as he sort of wants to cry.

Han said he’d be around—that he’d stay in touch—but they barely comm each other afterward, and they don’t see each other for years.

 

 

(When they do, Han just landed in Lando’s very own city with swagger in his step, and Lando says:

 

“You’ve got nerves coming here after what you did.”

 

He means ‘after you broke my heart’ but Han jokes about winning the Falcon fair and square, and Lando has a familhy of his own now—loves his husband with everything he is—but the old wound still stings as he wonders what things would have been like if Han had been a different person.)

**Author's Note:**

> Comments and review make me want to keep writing ;)


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